(1944- ) Innovative French artist with an epic imagination and an astringent pen-line style who cofounded with Moebius (Jean Giraud) and others the publishing company Les Humanöides Associés and the imaginative graphic-fiction magazine Métal Hurlant in 1975; much of the contents of the latter have been published in English in the US magazine Heavy Metal.

Brought up in Spain, Druillet was a photographer until the publication of his first strip Lone Sloane (graph coll 1967; intro by Maxim Jakubowski), a bawdy Space Opera influenced by US Cinema and Heroic Fantasy. A unique illustrator, though often clumsy in his portrayal of the human face, Druillet has enlarged the graphic structures of the sf Comic strip and created a wild, flamboyant, and morally ambiguous universe of crazed architectures and monstrous Aliens. The increasingly obsessive Lone Sloane adventures were continued in Les 6 voyages de Lone Sloane ["The Six Journeys of Lone Sloane"] (graph coll 1972) and, with script by Jacques Lob, Delirius (graph coll 1973); these were collected together in English as Lone Sloane – Delirius (graph omni trans 1975). Further instalments were Yragael (graph coll 1974 with script by Michel Demuth) and Urm le fou (graph coll 1975), which were collected together in English as Yragael Urm (graph omni trans Pauline Tennant 1976). Druillet also tackled Sword and Sorcery with his adaptation of Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné with script by Jakubowski and Demuth as Elrick (graph 1973; with script by Moorcock as Elric1973). La nuit ["The Night"] (graph 1977), a sombre panorama of urban warfare, was completed after the traumatic experience of his wife's death from cancer in 1975. His other works include Vuzz (graph 1974), Retour à Bakaam ["Return to Bakaam"] (graph 1975) with script by Francois Truçhaud, Mirages (graph 1976), Salammbo (graph 1983), and Nosferatu (graph coll 1982; trans 1991), the last being a collection of black-and-white strips first published in the magazine Pilote.

Beginning in the 1970s, Druillet began branching out into other media: his art appeared on a few book covers, notably Dutch editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods of Mars (January-May 1913 All-Story; 1918), The Warlord of Mars (December 1913-March 1914 All-Story; 1919), and Thuvia, Maid of Mars (8 April-22 April 1916 All-StoryWeekly; 1920), all in the early 1970s; he worked for an unusual opera production, Wagner Space Opera; he did posters for a few films, including Quest for Fire (1981); during the mid 1980s he was commissioned to create the internal decor for the Paris Metro station at Porte de la Villette; and he created a children's sf animated television series, Bleu, l'Enfant de la Terre (1986), which ultimately had 52 26-minute episodes. More recently, he launched another animated series, the Fantasy adventure Xcalibur (2001), and he wrote and directed an animated version of Nosferatu (2002) [MJ/RT/GW]

Philippe Druillet

born Toulouse, France: 28 June 1944

died

works

In addition to graphic novels listed above and other graphic novel compilations.

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